Wax on, wax off

Isn’t the wax gorgeous?

This batch of beeswax was just sold this afternoon and I wanted to share some cool info with you. Such as the man who requested this wax is a local woodworker, creating goods from reclaimed lumber. Very green, don’t you think? Keeping with the ‘green’ theme, he’s looking to condition his products with his version of spoon butter, using local beeswax. He’s still searching for the perfect recipe, so I sent a sample and my recipe with him (along with the wax).

Another bit of cool info: The white wax in the photo was never used by the bees. It was burr comb that I had to remove. The darkest yellow wax was leftover from the honey that I harvested. The two blocks of “middle shaded” beeswax were used by the bees, but are not as old as the darkest block. I tend to be rather conservative with my harvesting, saving most of the honey for the bees to eat during winter, so a shade of yellow is normal from my hive. If any honeycomb is left after the first nectar flow during early summer, I’ll harvest some of it.

Why don’t you have more wax?

I am glad you asked. Wax takes a lot of “bee effort” to create. Any wax that can be reused by the bees will stay with the bees. Pre-made wax gives the hive a head start, meaning less resources will have to go to make wax and more will go toward making honey.